I agree that advocacy with all levels of government is important. They seem in general to be interested, and to listen politely, but often to not understand that creating a new license is poison to open data. So it is important to keep talking with them, more and more of them, until they comprehend. "Data law" is relatively new, in terms of law. "Data law" is applied unevenly by countries. The very nature of data demands "mixing" with other data sets. This means that explicit and careful drafting of a license is required so that it will work everywhere without accidentally discriminating against a potential user.
I disagree that ODbL is the right license for municipalities or other governments. ODbL is absolutely the right license for OSMF and the OSM community. OSMF must serve the OSM community of mappers, and the share alike provision is important to a substantial portion of the mapping community. ODbL deliberately discriminates against those who would take ODbL data, improve it, and not share the improvements. That is an important and deliberate feature of the ODbL license Governments must serve all of their citizens, even those who would not choose to share. The ODbL share alike provision is not suitable for government publishers who mush serve both their sharing and non-sharing constituents. I recommend that governments publish their open data under ODC PDDL. PDDL allows use, not just in OSM, but in any open data project. PDDL allows use, not just in open data projects, but in closed commercial projects that chose not to share at all. PDDL allows use in all jurisdictions with established data law, but also in jurisdictions where data law is not recognized and copyright law is used to fill the gaps. Governments must serve a broader audience than the OSMF must serve. OpenDataCommons recognize that one Open Data license is not sufficient, and have drafted a suite of licenses. Their licenses are drafted to be compatible, so that PDDL data can be included in ODbL data sets. Advocating that governments publish open data under PDDL _should_ be easier than advocating for ODbL because publishing under PDDL is good for OSM, but also good for any other potential use of the data. So, those advocates should be seen as not simply advocating something for the benefit of their own pet project, OSM, but for the benefit of all potential open data users. To advocate that governments support only one specific open data project, even a project as wonderful as OpenStreetMap, could be seen as mere self-interest, rather than enlightened advocacy. Best regards, Richard [1] ODC - OpenDataCommons.org - the same publisher of the ODbL license. [2] PDDL - Public Domain Dedication and License
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